


Borrowed Time

by weakinteraction



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Canon-typical levels of things going badly for humans who meet them, Gen, Place Beyond Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-16 12:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17549699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Sapphire and Steel encounter a new type of threat.





	Borrowed Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tish/gifts).



Sapphire existed as an idea. Sapphire exists as an idea. Sapphire will exist as an idea eternally.

An idea, built on ideas. A very particular way in which elements (in her case, primarily aluminium and oxygen -- medium atomic weights -- but they themselves were built from other ideas, ideas of subatomic particles) could be combined so that when they caught the light just so ... But there was another whole set of ideas again: the rules of electromagnetic radiation, the dance between photons and electrons. Yet other ideas underpinned her existence in other ways, like the elements of geometry that governed her crystal structure.

But the ideas that gave her form included another idea, perhaps the most dangerous of all: Time.

The relationships between the many different types of elements that made up the Element, Sapphire, all relied on the idea of _change_. And so the only way for those ideas to be fully reified was for an entire universe to exist in which that change could be worked out.

But with that came danger, because Time was all too willing to exploit those changes. Even though it was a whole dimension in and of itself, it had to be controlled. Controlled by forces like Sapphire; her partner, Steel; and many others. Here, outside Time, it was impossible to even comprehend the intervals between their missions. But Sapphire felt herself begin to exist again. An existence embodied in time; she felt herself sparkling. Then she felt her partner Steel _nearby_ , and knew that they were beginning to exist in space as well.

In relative moments, they would be transcribed into whatever form was most appropriate for their task.

They were being assigned.

* * *

May twisted the winding key in the old clock, wrenching it round and round by its chunky handle. The mechanism sputtered into life again, and a moment later it chimed the half hour.

She wondered if it would make it to the hour before it needed winding again, and if it did how much time it would have lost getting there.

Mr. Wozniak wandered in from the back room, cleaning his glasses with a small cloth. "Stopped again, has it?"

"Yes," May said.

"Ah well, never mind," he said.

"But, surely, if someone wants to buy it ... I mean, we couldn't--"

He looked at her, sharp for a moment. "Couldn't what?"

"Well, you know, Trade Descriptions, and all that," she said. "Can't sell people something that doesn't work ..."

"I suppose not," Mr. Wozniak said. "Do you suppose, if we called it an antique, not actually a working clock ... ?"

"It was working, not that long ago." May frowned for a moment; she couldn't remember, exactly, when it had started to go wrong.

"It was," he agreed. "And I took it to pieces and put it back together again, just last week. Couldn't see anything wrong with it at all."

"I think that's the fifth time I've wound it today."

Mr. Wozniak made a noise and opened up one of the window displays from behind to start fussing with the earrings. They were perfectly well aligned -- May had checked them just this morning -- but he liked to keep himself busy.

Working in the jewellery shop was a good enough job, as jobs went, May thought, though it was a long way from the sort of thing she'd imagined she might do, back when she'd been at school. Mr. Wozniak didn't really seem to need an assistant, and May thought that mostly he liked the company. He had an air of loneliness that never left him.

But it was also quite an odd job. Entire days could go by when the shop was only visited by one or two people who would browse for a short while, and then leave again. At weekends, bored teenagers sometimes came in -- including some May had known since she was their age, and they mere toddlers -- trying to impress each other with their discussions of which of the watches on display they would buy if they had the money. But then, on other days, people would come in and spend eye-watering amounts of money, enough all at once for Mr. Wozniak to pay the rent, the business rates and her salary for the month. Sometimes they came in out of the blue, other times they had been in half a dozen times over the weeks before finally making up their mind.

The small bell attached to the door rang loudly, and in walked two customers who definitely looked like they might fall into the latter category. Her first impression was of how similar their hair was -- both a very bright yellow -- and that they were very well turned out, though there was something about the way they dressed that seemed just a little out of kilter, as though they were very deliberately imitating the look they'd seen in a catalogue somewhere.

"You think this is the place?" the man said.

"Definitely," the woman replied.

"That sounds encouraging," Mr. Wozniak said quietly to her. "I'll leave them in your capable hands." And he returned to the back room.

May stepped out from behind the cash register. "So, what are we looking for? An engagement ring?" she said brightly.

"I'm sorry?" the man said.

"Sorry, it's just ... I thought ..." May said. "That is, you seem like a modern couple. I thought maybe you wanted to decide together, rather than spring it on her as a surprise."

They both looked at her blankly. Eventually, the woman said, "We usually decide things together." Something about the way she said it made May think that when they disagreed, it was a pretty serious business.

It was at times like this that she did feel a level of responsibility in her work. These sorts of decisions were very important to people. Get it right and you were being a small part of what might become one of their most important memories. "Can I show you anything in particular?" She leant over the glass display, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Perhaps something in platinum would suit?" She thought it might go well with the lady's blue dress.

* * *

_~If only she knew.~_

He was only mildly disappointed that Sapphire ignored his attempt to rile her. _~There's definitely something here. But I can't localise it.~_

_~Can I help?~_

_~Keep her busy. Get her to show you some things while I look around.~_

* * *

May was just beginning to become frustrated with the couple. The man seemed horribly indecisive -- this was the fourth tray of rings he'd made her take out to show him, only for him to consider each in turn, before asking to see another -- and the woman utterly uninterested, staring at anything and everything in the shop but the rings. If they were planning to get married, she wasn't sure she thought much of the chances of it lasting.

"This picture," the woman said suddenly. Her voice sounded distracted.

"It isn't for sale, is it?" The man's voice was sharp, his attention instantly on what she had said.

"No!" May said. "Of course not. That's Mr. Wozniak and his wife."

"It has great significance," the woman said. "Doesn't it?"

"To Mr. Wozniak, yes. She ... She died. A long time ago now."

"That's a military uniform, isn't it?" the man said, studying the picture. "Air Force, is that right?"

May nodded. "Mr. Wozniak fought in the Battle of Britain," she said.

The pair exchanged a look. Then the mood shifted, became less tense.

"Tell us about this clock," the woman said, suddenly moving on.

"Ah, that's a-- that's an antique," May said carefully. "A beautiful piece."

"May I touch it?"

May saw out of the corner of her eye that Mr. Wozniak had reappeared in the doorway through from the back. "If you're careful," she said, catching Mr. Wozniak's eye. He nodded minutely.

"Of course," the woman said.

* * *

Sapphire reached out, the tips of her fingers running across the ornate carving of the wooden frame.

~Hands. Hands that built, hands that repaired. A hand, touching now.~

~Hands. Hands that tick across the face.~

~Hands. Hands ... slowed.~

* * *

The woman let go again. "It's lost time, hasn't it?" she said.

Mr. Wozniak walked in. "How did you know that?" he asked.

"She's right, isn't she?" the man said.

May nodded. "I've been winding it all day, it feels like." She looked at them both. "But, I thought you were looking for--"

"And what about the watches?" the woman asked.

"They're all fine. Aren't they? They're quartz, so--"

"Reliant on crystal lattice oscillations," the man said.

"Er, yes."

"Quartz is on long term assignment," the woman said. "A pity, I'm sure she'd be very helpful." May had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"I wonder ..." the man said. He looked straight at May, and she got the strangest feeling that he could be devastatingly charming, if only it occurred to him to try. "What time do these watches read?" he asked.

"Quarter to four," May said. "You ... do know how to tell the time, don't you?"

The man put his hand up. "Now listen."

Faintly, May heard the bells of the clock tower in the market square. She realised it was chiming the hour.

"One," the man said.

"Two," the woman continued.

"Three." The man again.

"Four," said Mr. Wozniak, though he seemed puzzled as to what was going on.

It was May herself who supplied "Five", with a feeling of mounting dread.

"Six," they all said together.

"That can't be right, though," May said. "I mean, it did feel as though things were dragging a bit this afternoon, before you came in--"

" _Before_ we came in?" the woman said, as though it were the most important question in the world.

"Yes," May said. "No offence, Mr. Wozniak. It's not that--"

"No, no," he said. "But _all_ the watches going wrong at once? We carry some of the most modern designs. We even have those awful digital ones."

He nodded at the cabinet in the corner where he tried to keep them from view. May glanced over: 3:48, the nearest one said. "What's happening?" she asked.

* * *

 _~An excellent question,~_ Steel observed to Sapphire.

_~Indeed it is. Do you have any ideas?~_

_~Not yet. Do you sense anything?~_

_~Yes, but it's hard to tell what. There's so much here that's out of time. And yet time is being ... observed here.~_

_~You think the sheer volume of chronometry going on in a small space is itself having an effect?~_

_~Perhaps. But I meant more like a ... religious observance.~_

Steel didn't reply immediately.

Sapphire went on, _~There is one thing I'm certain about.~_

_~What's that?~_

_~These people are in danger.~_

* * *

The silence was eerie, but May did not feel as though she could break it. Mr. Wozniak seemed to feel the same sense of unease, almost of deference to these newcomers as they stood in seeming silent communion. A little while ago, they had simply being polite to potential customers. Now, the balance of power had shifted. Subtly, almost invisibly, but definitely shifted.

The man blinked, and it was only when he did that May realised he hadn't done so for some time. "You should leave," he said.

This, at last, stirred Mr. Wozniak into expressing himself. "Leave? What are you talking about? This is _my_ shop. How do I know this isn't all some elaborate plot to rob me of my livelihood?"

"It's for your own safety, I assure you," the woman said, and May believed her utterly.

"There's something ... _wrong_ , isn't there?" May said.

The woman nodded curtly.

"May can go," Mr. Wozniak said. "Her shift ended an hour ago, after all."

"No," May said reflexively.

"I insist," Mr. Wozniak said. "This is not your burden to lift."

May looked out of the window, at the dark sky, the sodium yellow wash of the streetlights reflecting off the jewellery. She felt cold, even though it was perfectly warm inside the shop. "I'll stay if you want," she said to Mr. Wozniak.

"I just told you to go, didn't I?" he said. He started fussing her towards the door, the same way he fussed over so many other things.

May glanced at the two customers who weren't customers, as though they would tell her what to do. They remained impassive. "All right then," she said. "But ... telephone me, when you get home safe? You've got my home number, haven't you?"

Mr. Wozniak nodded.

May fetched her coat and put it on, pulling the collar up pre-emptively.

She looked around. "Well, goodbye then, I suppose. I'll see you on Monday, Mr. Wozniak." She managed to make it sound brighter than she felt.

"On Monday," he said firmly.

May crossed to the door and reached out to open it. Her hand was halfway to the handle when she felt as though it began to slow. She pushed on, until it was three-quarters of the way there. It seemed to be getting harder and harder, as though the very air was thickening into molasses. She kept pushing -- her hand was nearly there now, surely, if she just kept going ...

She felt herself being yanked backwards. The man had his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her away. She felt as though she ought to object, but the look on his face was all business. He wasn't doing it for his own entertainment.

"Zeno's Paradox?" the woman asked him.

"Something like that, yes," he said.

"All right, what _is_ going on here?" May demanded.

"We don't know," the woman said. "But we're going to deal with it. That's why we were sent here." 

"Sent here? By whom? Who are you?" Mr. Wozniak asked.

"That's all a little complicated," the man said.

"We can at least answer the last of your questions," the woman said. "I'm Sapphire. This is Steel." She turned to him. "We must be missing something."

"Clearly," he said. He looked at May and Mr. Wozniak. "Has anything strange happened here recently, other than the clock running slow?"

They both shook their heads.

"What's that?" Sapphire asked.

May followed her gaze to the grandest display cabinet, at the very back of the shop. The necklace hanging in it was one of the most valuable items in the shop, though she couldn't, right now, recall what its price was supposed to be. At its centre a shimmering jewel caught the light in strange ways, shimmering and shifting, more like the rainbow patterns in a soap bubble than a crystal.

Mr. Wozniak opened his mouth, as though he was about to answer Sapphire's question, then closed it again.

"How long has it been here?" Steel said.

May searched her memory for the answer, but couldn't find it. She felt as though it had always been there, as though it had sat, unsold, mostly ignored, since she first began working for Mr. Wozniak nearly three years ago.

"I ... I don't know," Mr. Wozniak said. He sounded upset, disturbed. "I should know. This is _my_ shop."

Sapphire fixed May with a piercing look, her eyes seeming to flash an even brighter blue. "I need to--"

May fumbled as she fetched the key for the cabinet from its hook underneath the desk. She felt them all looking at her. Mr. Wozniak looked as though he wanted to object to the idea of letting them handle the necklace, but couldn't quite bring himself to do so.

Carefully, May removed it from its stand, the truncated neck suddenly making her think uncannily of a beheading. She brought it out and laid it down in front of Sapphire.

"Thank you," Sapphire said, seemingly with utter sincerity.

* * *

Sapphire pulled off her glove, reached out--

_~ ~_

_~ ~_

_~ ~_

Steel's arms around her, pulling her away.

"Sapphire, are you all right?"

She opened her mouth to speak. But the thing that was no-thing was inside her now. She had been infected. Corrupted. She could not express herself. Words no longer had any meaning. There could be no subjects or objects for her sentences, for all referents, whether concrete or abstract, were negated. And there could be no verbs, no _doing_ , no past or present or future tense, in the absence of time itself.

"Sapphire, your eyes ..."

What about her eyes? She widened them. That, at least, remained within her power for now. Ironic, that this body, this shell, could still communicate, even as the concepts from which it was constructed collapsed in the face of contradiction.

Steel understood; he closed his eyes, concentrating, and his skin took on the metallic sheen of his nature.

In the distorted reflection, Sapphire saw her own face. She looked extremely pale, the outward reflection of her inner ongoing collapse. She was turning a deathly white, except for her eyes, eyes that should have been glistening pure blue in the psychometric trance, but were completely black.

She put her hands to her face in horror, and then all thought left her.

* * *

May watched as Steel -- Steel, who had just _been_ steel, for a moment, caught Sapphire and laid her down on the floor.

"Is she in a coma?"

"In your terms, yes, I suppose she is."

Mr. Wozniak looked stricken. May had a momentary vision of what it must have been like: a younger Mr. Wozniak, only a little older than the one in the picture -- albeit wearing civilian clothes -- at his wife's bedside as the life slowly ebbed out of her. It was all too easy to believe that Sapphire's predicament was sending his mind spiralling back through the years.

But the way Sapphire and Steel had talked, it seemed as though that might be dangerous. If even an object from the past could allow the onward flow of time to go wrong, how much worse a person reliving it in their mind?

"Is there anything you can do?" she asked Steel.

"Perhaps. I may need some extra help."

"What do you want me to do?"

Steel smiled, but it wasn't warm. "I meant, there's someone else, someone like us--"

"Oh," May said. "A friend of yours?"

"I wouldn't necessarily go that far," Steel said.

"Well, is there anything I can do?"

Steel nodded at Mr. Wozniak. "Look after him," he said. "He looks like he needs it."

May touched Mr. Wozniak gently on the elbow and led him into the back room. "Let's make a cup of tea, shall we?"

He let her steer him away, but his eyes stayed fixed on Sapphire.

As May closed the door, she saw that another man had arrived. Tall, a thick head of hair. "I had a deuce of a time getting here," he was saying.

It was only when she went to put the kettle on that she realised that she hadn't heard the bell attached to the door ring at all.

* * *

Sapphire walked along the shore. Sapphire was walking along the shore. Sapphire is walking along the shore. Sapphire will walk along the shore forever.

Her bare feet crunched on the fine sand, but she soon saw that it was not sand at all. She bent down to pick up a handful, looking at it. The material was composed of tiny beads in a multitude of colours -- white, red, green, yellow, many more besides. She stood up, absent-mindedly letting them fall through her fingers as she did.

She looked up into the sky, and saw that it was a blank uniform wash of grey-white light. No Sun, no stars -- a seemingly permanent twilight.

And then, finally, she looked out to sea, and realised that her mind had been recoiling from what it had apprehended. The sea was completely frozen -- not turned to ice, but held fixed at a single moment in time, the peaks and troughs of the waves unnaturally still, a cresting breaker perched on the brink of crashing back down, yet never doing so. It was not like a picture of such a scene; a skilled artist could capture a moment as a _moment_ , implying the existence of the moments that had existed before and would exist afterwards. This was something very different: a moment that existed in isolation. An _eternity_.

* * *

May watched the kettle as it boiled. It seemed to be taking longer than usual. She tried to tell herself that that was just her anxiety talking, not another manifestation of whatever strange phenomenon was going on in the shop.

She knew that Steel had mostly been trying to get them out of the way, but Steel's imprecation to look after Mr. Wozniak rang in her ears.

"Tell me about her," May said, as she put the two mugs down on the table and sat opposite him.

"I hope she's going to be all right," Mr. Wozniak said.

"Me too. But I wasn't talking about Sapphire. I meant Mrs. Wozniak."

"All of that was a long, long time ago, May."

"I know. I'd still like to hear, if you're willing to tell me."

Mr. Wozniak sipped his tea. Then he looked straight into May's eyes, and she realised he'd never actually done that before, or at least, if he had, his eyes had never before been so sparkling, so alive. "Anna's hair was the colour of a field of barley in the summer, just before it's harvested. And as long. Women didn't usually wear their hair that long, back then." He laughed. "It used to get-- Well, never mind about that. The point is, that's the first thing I noticed about her, when she came to the pub that night."

"This was during the war?"

He nodded. "She was a Land Girl, that's what they called it. Helping out on the farms while all the men were away fighting. In her way, she was every bit as out of place as I was. A girl from the city, out in the fields ..."

"So what happened?"

"Anna always said she saw me first, but with that hair I couldn't have missed her. But I don't know that either of us really knew who made the first move. I'm sure you won't believe a man who stoops when he walks and is three-quarters bald could turn the head of a girl like that, but I was quite dashing in my day."

"Oh, I can believe it," May said with a smile.

"We got married quickly." At May's look, he said, "No, nothing like that. You have to remember, there was a war. You never knew what was going to happen to anyone. Every time I got in my Hurricane could be the last. And even in the countryside, there were bombs, raids missing their target, or just dumping their payload if they were limping home. But ... we both survived."

"And you stayed here?"

"There was nothing left for me to go back to." A small, sad shrug. "The Nazis killed my family, and the Soviets expropriated everything I might otherwise have inherited. And I had plenty to stay here for. Until ..."

He was silent for a moment. May reached out hesitantly, placed her hand over his that was still gripping his now empty cup.

"We were going to have children," he said eventually. "That was the plan, anyway. Once the shop was a bit better established, you know. But, well, I think I'm glad we didn't. I don't know that I would have done a very good job, looking after a son or a daughter by myself. Especially a daughter ... I think she would have reminded me too much of her."

"I'm sorry," May said.

Mr. Wozniak smiled. "Don't be. It ... it was nice to talk. We don't really ... talk much, do we? Except about work."

"I'm fine with that," May said. She didn't want to admit that she preferred it that way.

"No, no, you've got me talking. Now you have to tell me something about yourself."

"All right," May said. "My parents called me May because the doctors told them I was going to be born in May, and they decided they liked the name. Or, at least, it was the idea that neither of them hated. But I came early. In April. They talked about calling me that, but then decided to stick with their original choice. They'd spent so long arguing about it it wasn't worth re-opening the discussion."

Mr. Wozniak smiled. "And if you had been a boy? What would they have called you then?"

"They never told me," May said. "Sometimes, I think they were relieved that I was a girl, because they still hadn't managed to agree on a boy name."

* * *

"What's happened to her?"

Steel wanted to be angry at Silver's exaggerated concern for Sapphire's well-being, but could not find it within himself in the face of her state.

She was still lying on the floor where Steel had gently laid her down after catching her in his arms. Her motionless body occupied most of the available floor space, the jewellery shop was so filled with display cabinets. Sapphire's hands were still at her cheeks, frozen like a statue. But most disturbing of all were her eyes -- those usually sparkling orbs replaced by utter emptiness, a jet black nothingness filling the sockets.

"You did the right thing calling for me," Silver said.

"Why? Do you have some brilliant idea that hasn't occurred to me?"

"No," Silver admitted ruefully, then brightened slightly. "Not yet, anyway." He crossed to the display case, the necklace resting on top of it.

"Don't get too close," Steel said.

"I'm not an idiot," Silver said. He put a finger to his lips. "There are humans here?"

"Two."

"Get them back in," Silver said. "I feel as though we're all missing something. You, me, even Sapphire--"

Steel crossed to the small door at the side of the shop and opened it. The humans were talking quietly over a small table, its formica top slightly chipped. "Excuse me," he said. "My associate would like to talk to you--"

They walked back in wordlessly.

Silver looked up at the shop assistant. "Tell me what happened."

"She asked to take a closer look at the necklace," the girl said. "Well, both of you really ..." She nodded at Steel, as though hoping for support. "And then she reached out and touched it--"

"Psychometric contact," Silver said. Steel nodded.

"And that was when she keeled over." She looked embarrassed for a moment. "Sorry. I mean-- that's how she ended up how she is now. ... Is she going to be all right?"

"I don't know," Silver said, at the exact same moment as Steel said, "We're working on it."

* * *

Sapphire crouched down, one hand on the iridescent beach, thinking hard. This place was _timeless_ and yet she was experiencing a passage of events. She could interact with the environment; she proved it to herself by crunching the grains between her fingers.

It was this temporary human form, she realised; her body, put on like a costume, had brought with it to this strange place enough of its own linear existence to allow her to move and act here -- for a while at least. If she had been in her pure, elemental form, would she have been able to do anything at all? Her human body was like a diver's breathing tank, bringing from one environment to another, hostile one, a limited supply of what was needed to supply. But in this case, it was not oxygen, but time itself.

The irony was not lost on Sapphire. This place was in some ways like her home, the home from which she regulated time. Now time, usually the greatest threat, was her lifeline.

She looked out at the frozen ocean, imagined for a moment a diver trapped in its unmoving depths.

Sapphire realised that she needed to act fast, before she lost the ability to act at all. But what was there here that she could do? What clues could she find?

She looked down, and picked up a handful of the strange sand once more. This time, though, she willed her mind into the contact--

_~Help me!~_

_~Help me!~_

_~Help me!~_

_~Help me!~_

Dozens of voices, screaming out at once. Voices she _knew_ , all of them.

Sapphire dropped the grains again, in horror. She knew now the answer to her question. If she had arrived her as pure Sapphire, she would have been trapped, and the infinitely slow rolling of the eternal ocean would, over the span of forever, have ground her down.

There was no blue in the sand. At least, not yet. But she was walking on the trapped essences of dozens of her comrades -- Diamond, Ruby, Emerald, Topaz ...

But she had something they hadn't had: time.

No, she realised. She had something else as well: Steel.

* * *

Steel watched anxiously as Silver worked, refashioning the necklace.

Finally, he stood back. "Take it all the way down."

Where there had once been a necklace was now a multifaceted framework in almost impossibly delicate strands of metal, an interlocking network of Platonic solids: pyramid inside cube inside octahedron inside dodecahedron, the icosahedron outer shell near spherical. At its heart remained the jewel that wasn't a jewel at all.

If they were right, then the thing was something from the very end of time, the heat death of the universe, when all processes finally stopped, everything that remained all existing at the same, extraordinarily low temperature, the tiniest fraction above absolute zero. The hope was that if Steel cooled it, they would be able to confuse it into thinking it had been returned to its native time, and release its grip on Sapphire.

Steel took up position in front of the display cabinet.

"Do you need Lead?" Silver asked.

"I can do this," he said, gritting his teeth with determination. He looked up at the shop owner and his assistant, still looking on in mute incomprehension. "You may want to stand back."

He put his hands to the outer layer of Silver's framework, and began.

Within moments, the glass of the display case had frosted over, the water vapour in the air turned directly into ice on its surface.

"Further," Silver urged.

Steel gritted his teeth and continued, closer and closer to absolute zero.

* * *

Something was happening. The blank twilight sky was taking on form. It was not so much a pattern in the wan light it gave out as a _texture_. Sapphire watched as the subtlest hint of Steel's face formed in the sky.

He was trying to reach her. But could she reach him? She put her hands to the ground once more.

 _~Help me,~_ the voices called again, in their endless chorus.

 _~Help ME,~_ Sapphire replied.

And they did.

The tiny grains around her, with time she lent them, danced into the air, making a giant rainbow bridge towards the sky.

A rainbow missing one colour.

With the last remaining instants of time she had brought with him, Sapphire transformed into her true self, and streaked through the bridge, through and out--

* * *

May gasped as she saw Sapphire awake.

"Now, destroy it!" the new arrival -- Silver, Steel had called him -- said.

"No!" Sapphire shouted. She was still lying prone on the floor. Instinctively, May obeyed her command, pulling the necklace away from Silver and Steel.

Sapphire got to her feet; May saw how Silver held out his arm for her to support herself on. And also how she shook him off again as soon as she was upright.

"We must," Steel said. "It's too dangerous, an object like that from the end of time. Look what it did to you."

"It isn't from the end of time," Sapphire said. "It's from outside time entirely." She shook her head. "No, not just outside time. Outside our entire experience. An artefact of an entirely different set of elements, that give rise to different possibilities. Or perhaps it's something that ... eats them, a logic monster that negates _all_ axioms."

"You're not making any sense," Silver said. For once, May found herself in agreement with something one of these strange people was saying.

"I can't fully explain it now that I'm free of it. But I do know ... I wasn't its first victim."

"What do you mean?" Steel asked.

"There are others in there," Sapphire said. "Other Operators. Diamond, Ruby ..."

"Impossible," Silver said. "We'd know if they were gone." Steel nodded in agreement.

"Would we?" Sapphire said. "If something, some force from outside time entirely, chose to attack, wouldn't it intersect with all of its targets simultaneously, from our point of view? And yet appear to have always been part of the timeline?"

Steel turned round, fixing May fully with his eyes and yet seeming to see right through her at the same time. "How old is this necklace?"

"At least two hundred years, I think," May said.

"And when did it come to be on display here?"

The girl looked puzzled. And scared. "I ... don't know."

"Last week? Last month? Last year?" He turned on Mr. Wozniak. "You must know, this is your shop."

Mr. Wozniak trembled under Steel's gaze. May wasn't used to seeing him like that. "I don't know! There must be a record somewhere, I can look--"

Steel turned back to May. "Do you even remember it being here when you came to work this morning?"

It was as though a dam burst inside her mind under the force of his words, and the memories -- or lack of memories -- flooded into her. "No," she said. "No, it wasn't." She looked at Mr. Wozniak. "He's right, isn't he?" He nodded, looking utterly and uncharacteristically defeated.

"Then you're right," Silver said. "And the others are still trapped in there?"

Sapphire nodded.

"Then what made you different?" Steel asked.

"I had two things. You -- the two of you, as it turns out -- and ... this." She made a strange gesture, as though to indicate herself.

"Of course," Silver said. "You were embodied within time at the moment of the attack."

"We have to rescue them," Sapphire said.

"Is that even possible? If they're trapped in utter timelessness--"

"I felt them," Sapphire said. "I heard them. They're still there, still conscious, trapped in an endless moment."

Steel furrowed his brow. "Then we need to give them ... time."

All three of them went silent.

"What is it?" May asked eventually, though in her heart of hearts she knew exactly what.

Mr. Wozniak began to speak, and though his voice was ever so quiet, it commanded the attention even of these strange beings who had invaded their lives. "When I flew in the war," he said, "many of my comrades died. My countrymen, and my British friends. And then ... not so long after the war, my wife died. Far, far too young. I have had my time, and more to spare. If I could have given it to them, to my friends, or especially to Anna, I would have done. But that wasn't an option." May saw him look at Sapphire, his eyes almost pleading. "But it is now, isn't it? I can help you rescue your comrades."

"Yes," Sapphire said. "Yes, you can."

May began to sob. "No," she said. "No, take me, instead."

Mr. Wozniak shook his head. "You have a long life ahead of you. Happiness and sadness you haven't even dreamed of yet. But I ... I have all that behind me. And I think ... these people, whoever or whatever they really are, I think we _need_ them."

May crossed over to him, took his hands in hers. "No, Mr. Wozniak--"

"I've made my decision," he said. "The shop's yours, if you want it. Take over, or sell it, I don't mind."

"I don't want it, I want--"

"Hush now," Mr. Wozniak said. "This is for the best. I can ... feel it."

May nodded. She couldn't deny that she felt it too.

"We will remember your sacrifice," Steel said. Somehow his sincerity made it all worse.

* * *

The endless eternity was interrupted, for a moment, but a moment long enough.

Sapphire, reaching down into the structure as Steel froze it once more, reformed the rainbow bridge, and spread the donated time along it, across the shore, so that all the tiny shards could be drawn along its length, reconstituting themselves as they went, until finally they pulled the bridge up behind them, leaving only the pale sky and the eternal ocean, frozen forever.

* * *

What happened next made very little sense to May, even by the standards of this long, strange afternoon.

Sapphire was touching the necklace, as she had before when it all went wrong. But she was also holding Mr. Wozniak's hand. Steel and Silver were supporting him as well. And then, suddenly, the shop was completely full of people, more than full -- an assembly of men and women she had never seen before, but who she could instantly tell were of the same strange breed as Sapphire and Steel.

Mr. Wozniak's body slumped in Steel and Silver's arms, and they took him carefully away into the back room. Meanwhile, the new arrivals were speaking to Sapphire, thanking her, some hugging her.

Silver and Steel returned, and began talking to them as well. May was dimly aware of all sorts of subtext to their conversations -- in-jokes, rivalries, flirtations. None of it really mattered to her, even if she could have comprehended it. All she could think about was Mr. Wozniak, the way the life had left his body.

And then, just as inexplicably as they had appeared, the new arrivals began to disappear, one by one. Eventually, only Sapphire, Silver and Steel were left. Steel came over to May. "I _am_ sorry," he said, and then he, too, vanished.

"What happens now?"

"Go home," Steel said. "Live your life."

"Live it well," Sapphire added.

"But never speak to anyone of this," Steel said. It wasn't a threat, just advice; May knew full well that no one would ever believe her story.

"Did it matter?" May asked. "Did it matter that he volunteered? Or would you have taken what you needed anyway?"

They didn't answer before they disappeared.

* * *

Sapphire existed as an idea. Sapphire exists as an idea. Sapphire will exist as an idea eternally.

All of her experiences, that she had ever had or would ever had, were encoded within the intricacies of her crystal structure. From a time-bound point of view, each tiny flaw was either a memory or a prophecy. But here, beyond time, her identity was always and could only ever be the totality of those experiences.

And Sapphire understood sacrifice.


End file.
